Orthodontic appliance



Nov. 26, 1963 c. J. WINKLER, sR

ORTHODONTIC APPLIANCE Filed April 20, 1962 United States Patent3,111,758 ORTHODONTIC APPLIANCE Carl J. Winkler, Sr., 7 490 N.Pennsylvania St., Indianapolis 20, Ind. Filed Apr. 20, 1962, Ser. No.189,031 2 Claims. (Cl. 32-14) This invention relates to a device forstraightening or aligning irregularly appearing teeth. It would be usedin dental orthopedics to be removably applied to the mouth of thepatient whereby a slight pressure is exerted to bring the teeth intoalignment as may be desired.

The device consists fundamentally of a curved wire of such material asstainless steel which is normally and initially given a curve closelyapproaching a parabola, and which will have teeth engaging memberscarried on its free ends. This particular wire will be attachedpermanently to another wire having a peculiar formation which will enterbetween the lips of the patient centrally of the mouth to be fixed tothe inner wire, and to extend from the fixing zone outwardly preferablythrough the corners of the patients mouth and thence around rearwardlyso that some means may be interconnected with the wire for passingaround the back of the head to retain the entire device within the mouthand the inner wire properly applied.

Such a device has heretofore been made in varying forms, and the presentinvention relates specifically to the means for interconnecting the twowires and doing so in a manner which will alleviate tendency for theinner wire particularly from breaking under repeated bending actions. Inother words, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a moredurable orthodonic brace which will particularly stand up under toyingby children, and also will be easily fitted without having to make sharpbends particularly atv or near the junction of the two wires.

With these objects and advantages in mind, reference is made to theaccompanying drawing in which,

FIG. 1 is a view in top plan of a structure embodying the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a view on a greatly enlarged scale on the line 2-2 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a view in detail also on an enlarged scale on the line 3--3 inFIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a view in section on the line 44 in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a view in top plan in partial section of a modified form ofstructure;

FIG. 6 is a section on an enlarged scale on the line 66 in FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a view on an enlarged scale on the line 77 in FIG. 5; and

FIG. 8 is a view in section of a form modified from that of FIG. 7.

A foundation member generally indicated by the numeral 10 is madepreferably in one piece. It may be described as being an arcuate lengthof a piece of irregularly shaped tubing wherein the relative inner sideof the tubing, that is the side which will be presented inwardly of thepatients mouth, is substantially semicircular as at 11, and then extendsfrom that semicircular section by diagonally extending sides 12 and 13diverging one from the other. The outer end portions of these side walls12 and 13 are interconnected by a reentering length 14 appearing fromthe outside as a groove around the member 10. Centrally of the length ofthis groove defining member 14, the tube is notched entirely thereacrossby a notch indicated by the numeral 15.

A further important characteristic of this foundation member 10 is thatthe end portions are provided with outwardly flaring lips 16 and 17respectively. That is 3,111,758 Patented Nov. 26, 1963 2 to say, thediameters of the entering ends of the tubular member 10 have largerdiameters than the diameter of the member 10 at its central portionintermediate those ends. This is best indicated in FIG. 4.

A wire 19 hereinafter referred to as the mouth wire is given a centralcurvature such as is indicated in FIG. 1, this central curvature beingdesignated by the numeral 20. From this central curvature, straight legs21 and 22 extend. The radius of curvature of the wire portion 20 willdepend somewhat upon the size of the patients mouth, and particularly onthe curvature of his teeth. This wire 19 is entered through the tube 11to be centrally positioned therein in respect to the curved portion 20.

An external wire 23 has a central portion 24 shaped to be at least aslong as the grooved portion 14 of the tube 11 may be, and will be curvedto lie within that groove and in contact with the floor thereof. Fromeach end of the portion 24, the wire 23 is curved rather sharplyoutwardly through the radii 25 and 26 respectively into a curvingportion 27 and 28 respectively of much greater radius, and in reversemanner so as to extend around in spaced relation from the legs 21 and 22by legs 29 and 30 respectively, these legs 29 and 30 being insubstantial parallelism with those legs 21 and 22 in the initiallyformed condition. The ends of the legs 29 and 30 will preferably havesome engaging means such as the hooks 31 and 32 by means of which thewire 23 may be engaged by some flexible member to pull the legs 29 and30 around in close proximity with the cheeks of the patient and toretain the entire device within his mouth with exception of this wire 23which of course remains outside.

After the curved portion is laid in the groove 14, and the wire 19 ispositioned as above indicated through the inside of the tube 11, thenthe two wires are fixed to the tubular member 11 by any suitable means,such as by brazing or preferably sliver soldering by flowing the solder15a through the notch 15 which will secure the wire 23 by its portion 24to the wall of the groove 14 and also permit the solder to flow inwardlyof the tube to engage the central portion of the curved arc 20 of theWire 19. The amount of solder or brazing material to be admitted throughthe notch 15 is limited in that it should not flow for any appreciablelength along the wire 19 Within the tube. All that is necessary is toanchor and fix into position the centralmost portion of the curvedlength 20.

By reason of the outwardly flaring ends of the tube 11, and the wire 19being fixed at its central zone only within the tube 11, the legs 21 and22 may be flexed not initially at the open ends of the tube 11, but mayflex within the tube as well as outside of it back to the central fixedzone. In other words the bending stress does not come in this wire 19 ata restricted line, but is distributed over a considerable curved lengthwithin and without the tube 11. Thus there is no sharp fulcrum overwhich the Wire 19 would normally be bent, and it would require anunusual distortion of the wire 19 to have it come into contact with theactual margin of the lips 16 and 17 which would be beyond the actionnormally required or occasioned.

The internal vertical dimension of the tubular member 11 at itscentralmost zone requires that the wire 19, by this central length 20will be approximately in contact with both the concave side and theconvex side so that the wire 19 is held in proper location for thesoldering, and also the member 10 be of small size to prevent undueannoyance to the patient.

A modified form of the tube 10 may be employed. For example, in FIG. 5,there is shown a tube 35 with an arcuate axis and split along the line26. The wire 19 is initially tacked to the wire 23 by soldering, brazingor welding at the centers of the curvatures 24 and 20 as indicated bythe numeral 37, the wires being illustrated as slightly separated toindicate more clearly the solder 37, whereas the two Wires at this zonewill be substantially in contact one with the other.

The interconnected wires 19 and 23 have the tubular member 35 broughtaround the wires about this connecting zone. The member 35 is one pieceof stainless steel of quite thin section and is formed with a lengthextending approximately the length of the curved portion 24 of the wire23. The member 35 curves freely around the wire 19 to extend around thelarger diameter wire length 24, FIG. 7, to terminate in approximatelyabutting edge portions 36a and 36b bearing against the wire length 24.The horizontal opening through the member 35 exceeds in dimension thesum of the diameters of the two wires, whereby the smaller wire 19 isbendable beyond the solder 37 within the limits of the clearances 38 and39, FIG. 7. The assembly of the wires 19 and 23 is secured in the tube35 by centrally notching the edge portions 36a and 3611 as at 40 and thesolder 4-1 is flowed through the notches to the wire 23.

A modified form of split tube is shown in the sectional view of FIG. 8,wherein edge portions 360 and 36d lap one over the other. The thicknessof the member 35 is greatly exaggerated in the several views for thesake of clarity.

The use of this brace is Well understood by the ortho dontist, andtherefore an explanation of its attachment and fitting to the teethWithin the mouth of the patient is omitted. While I have herein shownand described my invention in this one particular form, it is obviousthat structural variations may be had, particularly in the anchoring ofthe two wires in the foundation element,

without departing from the spirit of the invention, and I therefore donot desire to be limited to that precise form beyond the limitationswhich may be required by the following claims.

I claim:

1. An orthodontic brace comprising a length of tubing having an arcuateaxis and being open at each end;

a mouth wire having a central curved zone from which, legs extend indiverging directions, said wire passing through said tubing and havingits said central zone centrally of the tube; and a holding Wire havingan arcuate central zone portion located centrally of said tubing;

said mouth wire being free to be flexed within and through said tubingby portions on each side of its central zone; and

means centrally fixing said wires to said tubing.

2. The structure of claim 1, in which each of said tubing ends has adiameter exceeding the combined diameters of said mouth and holdingwires extend therethrough, which ends provide for said flexing bothwithout the tubing and within the tubing up to said central zone out ofcontact of said margins.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS345,655 Wood July 13, 1886 2,162,815 Kruger June 20, 1939 2,447,154Brickman Aug. 17, 1948 3,036,380 Martinek May 29, 1962 FOREIGN PATENTS620,060 Germany Oct. 12, 1935 643,696 Germany Apr. 15, 1937

1. AN ORTHODONTIC BRACE COMPRISING A LENGTH OF TUBING HAVING AN ARCUATEAXIS AND BEING OPEN AT EACH END; A MOUTH WIRE HAVING A CENTRAL CURVEDZONE FROM WHICH, LEGS EXTEND IN DIVERGING DIRECTIONS, SAID WIRE PASSINGTHROUGH SAID TUBING AND HAVING ITS SAID CENTRAL ZONE CENTRALLY OF THETUBE; AND A HOLDING WIRE HAVING AN ARCUATE CENTRAL ZONE PORTION LOCATEDCENTRALLY OF SAID TUBING; SAID MOUTH WIRE BEING FREE TO BE FLEXED WITHINAND THROUGH SAID TUBING BY PORTIONS ON EACH SIDE OF ITS CENTRAL ZONE;AND MEANS CENTRALLY FIXING SAID WIRES TO SAID TUBING.